radio free canuckistan

Thursday, July 26, 2018

“And you may find
yourself in another part of the world … and you may say to yourself, ‘Well, how
did I get here?’”

The Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light marked the time when
they dove in deep to their West African influences, particularly that of Fela
Kuti. It was far removed from the punk and new wave scenes from which they were
spawned. There was only one minor hit single from it: “Once in a Lifetime,” an
oddball pop song with spoken verses, its success propelled largely by the
then-innovative video. It was that song that Angelique Kidjo heard in Paris, in
1983, after she escaped a censorious dictatorship in her home of Benin. She
immediately recognized its West African influence, though people at the party
she was attending told her that there was no way that could be true, because
African music wasn’t as sophisticated as Talking Heads.

Despite his fans’ ignorance, Talking Heads’
David Byrne was very clear about what was influencing him at the time. He
became a major advocate of Fela Kuti in every interview he did. There were
questions raised then, as now, as to whether he had a right to borrow from a
culture supposedly alien to his own. But Kidjo never saw it that way. As an
African who herself has often been told that her music is not “African” enough,
Kidjo reveled in the way that Byrne and his band blurred lines and borrowed
from her culture without claiming it as their own but instead creating
something new. “I’m walking a line / divide and dissolve,” sings Byrne in
“Houses in Motion.”

All of which leads up to this reimagining of Remain in Light as a whole, in which
Kidjo covers the entire album. She does so by placing percussion and vocals at
the forefront, and her commanding vocal delivery is, at the very least, an
intriguing contrast to Byrne’s, which sounds meek in comparison. That doesn’t
mean Kidjo strips the material down, however: her Remain in Light sounds very much like it was made in 2018, neither
a throwback to the time the original was created nor to a period of ’70s
African funk to which many Western “purists” insist on clinging. And just to
give the cultural appropriation police even more to chew on, she employs the
horn section from Brooklyn Afrobeat revivalists Antibalas as well as Vampire
Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, with Fela Kuti’s drummer Tony Allen—who deserves as much
credit as Fela does for pioneering the genre—doing what he does best.

Hearing a modern African woman sing Byrne’s
lyrics is also revelatory. “Seen and Not Seen” is about someone who does not
see faces like his in the culture around him, who fantasizes about changing the
shape of his face in order to fit in. The haunting “Listening Wind” is about an
African villager who plants a bomb to drive away the Americans who are
colonizing his country. “Born Under Punches” makes perfect sense when talking
about any country brutalized by both colonialism and corrupt governments. The
line ““Changing my shape, I feel like an accident,” found in “Crosseyed and
Painless,” could refer to any traveller or immigrant who must “code-switch” to
fit into the dominant culture. Then, of course, there is “Once in a Lifetime,”
in which life doesn’t always go as planned, in which the water underground
connects us all. A common theme in much of Byrne’s early work is anxiety—this
is the man who wrote “Life During Wartime,” after all (from Fear of Music)—and the world has never
been more anxious than it is right now, no matter where you live.

What’s also striking about Kidjo’s work in
2018 is how much stock she places in Remain
in Light as an album. She could easily have cherry-picked
various Talking Heads songs from throughout their discography, but she chose
these eight songs that are rooted in a particular period of transformation and
discovery on the part of its composers, eight songs that form a cohesive whole.
In a week when Drake has released yet another exhaustive and exhausting epic
work that was consciously designed to spike his record-setting streaming
numbers, Remain in Light is a
reminder that concision and cohesion goes a long, long way. Decades, in fact,
of illumination.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

This project is
exactly what it sounds like: a small chamber orchestra, with guest singers,
performing songs by queer composers—closeted at the time or otherwise—as well
as songs that have been widely adapted by the LGBTQ community. Sometimes the
choices are obvious, like k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving” or Melissa Etheridge’s
“Come to My Window” or Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” (sadly, the latter is not
on this debut album, although the QSO does a spectacular arrangement of the
’80s hit live). Sometimes the choices are not so obvious: neither Anne Murray
nor songwriter Gene MacLellan were gay, but there’s an interesting take on
their classic “Snowbird” here—because, why? Because for years people thought
Murray was a lesbian? Not that it much matters, as the arrangement here keeps
the song’s pretty melody but the chordal structure underneath it is jarring and
occasionally dissonant—which underscores the aspiration and longing and
distance between the narrator and the title subject.

Music is just part of
the mission for the QSO. They also collect stories and testimonials from queer
voices across Canada about how music was a source of strength and often a
lifeline when living in intolerant communities. (If you have one, they want to
hear from you: info@queersongbook.com.) The mere fact this
orchestra exists and is doing this work is inherently political; they are
working closely with the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives on their
storytelling project. Every song here is accompanied by a compelling story
either about the composer (Billy Strayhorn, Joe Meek) or a personal tale of a
queer person’s connection to the song. One track, written by Gentleman Reg, “Last
of His Kind,” is dedicated to the late Toronto DJ and activist Will Munro.

But the music is just
as interesting—often for what it isn’t rather than what it is. When Alanna Stuart
of Bonjay sings “Constant Craving”—and knocks it out of the park, by the way,
which is no small feat—the arrangement behind her is relatively conventional
and recognizable. On the other hand, the Etheridge song, in a lush arrangement
by avant-garde composer Nicole Lizée, is reduced to the sole lyric: “Just to
reach you.”

Considering the
breadth of material this ensemble performs live, and with so many guest
singers, it’s mildly disappointing that the debut enlists only four singers and
a small sampling of the material they already have arrangements for. But
there’s a lot of life in this project, and no shortage of interesting source
material—and incredibly talented Canadian musicians from across the country
willing to lend a hand. (June 15)

Stream: “Constant
Craving,” “Snowbird,” “Lush Life”

UPDATE: Full Canadian tour is on for this fall, from Whitehorse to St. John's

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Strength in numbers:
where are all the rap groups? Part of what has made Migos and Brockhampton so successful is the
novelty of having more than two rappers in one group. In Quebec, it’s not at all
unusual to have rap crews: Alaclair Ensemble, Radio Radio, Dead Obies. This year also saw the rise of the Snotty Nose Rez Kids from Vancouver. But an
English-Canadian rap crew made up of four women? That’s unheard of. That
they’ve made one of the best rap records of the last 12 months makes it even
sweeter.

The members of the
Sorority— Haviah Mighty, Lex Leosis, Phoenix Pagliacci, Keysha Freshh—met at an
International Women’s Day event (of course). They quickly clicked, and small
wonder: they all have great flow, they’re all equals, and they’re as skilled as
R&B singers as they are rappers. Even better, for a group with such
old-school skills, the music underneath is thoroughly modern yet also wholly
original—they’re not chasing trends to fit in.

Every month another
artist comes out of Toronto that exemplifies the diversity of the city’s
hip-hop and R&B scene, each one seemingly stronger than the last. Expect to
hear a lot more about the Sorority in the next year and beyond. (June 1)